On Monday 14 June 2004 15:36, Gregory Millam wrote:
> Received: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 06:59:36 +0900
>
> And lo, Sean wrote:
> > On Monday 14 June 2004 14:55, Gavin Sinclair wrote:
> > > On Tuesday, June 15, 2004, 2:57:26 AM, Hal wrote:
> > > > Would you say that the ordering of the words in a dictionary is
> > > > arbitrary?
> > >
> > > No because that ordering makes sense to Sean.  Anything *else* would
> > > be, by definition, arbitrary.
> >
> > Close, but not quite right.  It makes sense to most people, including me.
> >
> > 	Sean O'Dell
>
> Arbitrary does not mean 'bad,' 'random' or 'senseless.' - It literally
> means 'because I said so.'
>
> It has evolved to mean 'somebody else's choice' - or simply 'out of my
> control' from the programmer's perspective.
>
> As for the dictionary:
>   Long, long ago, somebody said, "I'll make the alphabet in this order: 'a,
> b, c ...". And that was arbitrary. Then Webster thought he'd kill language
> evolution and said, "I'll write a dictionary! And the words will be in
> alphabetical order" - That was arbitrary. But you can bet it'd outsell a
> dictionary with words placed at random, simply because everyone by then
> believe that "a, b, c" was the natural order of the alphabet. Good business
> sense, but it's still arbitrary.
>
> Unless there are rules that state "XYZ must be ordered alphabetically,"
> then ordering XYZ alphabetically is arbitrary. But then, unless there's
> something that says, "XYZ must be ordered the way Sean wants it to be,"
> then everything's arbitrary - But your choice is still arbitrary.
>
> At least, that's my arbitrary definition of arbitrary.
>
> This reply written arbitrarily.

You're taking the side of those who get spit on, I should warn you.

	Sean O'Dell